"Stranger Things" Season 2 Chapter Five: Dig Dug

"Stranger Things" Season 2

Chapter Five: Dig Dug

Not only is Will possessed by the evil force, it's taken root (literally) under the town of Hawkins and slowly spreading out. This has a definite John Carpenter-ish feel.

Hopper is the first to discover it - digging under the pumpkin patch. He finds a system of tunnels and twisting vine like roots. When he drops down to investigate them, though, he's unable to avoid being overcome by them.
 
Eleven learns the truth about what was done to her mother, thus setting the stage for her to go full-bore Dark Phoenix again at some point - probably in the general direction of the lab.

Meanwhile Dustin has to track down the demon lizard Dart who's escaped, which is leads to situations both humorous and horrifying.

But again the episode has some big jumps - specifically in the Johnathan and Nancy story arc. After somehow being let go by the bad guys last episode, they have a tape recording of Dr. Owens admitting to the lab's culpability in Barb's death. Somehow they manage to find the conspiracy theorist Murray (think all the Lone Gunmen from "The X-Files" rolled into one), and enlist his help in using it to bring down the lab.

The show's most direct connection to The Goonies is the presence of Sean Astin as Bob the Brain. Happily, he gets a larger role this time, helping to figure out where Hopper is. Sadly, as with the Johnathan-Nancy-Steve love triangle, and true to "Stranger Things" formula, this just reunites Joyce and Hopper, and of course the nerd isn't the one that gets the girl.





There was some great comic relief, though, and not just from Dustin and Dart. Max's reactions to Lucas' retelling of all the events in Season One was like making fun of the show's critics, "it was a bit derivative", etc.

Best track: Bobby Bare's "The Green Green Grass" of home is poignantly ironic as Elle hitchhikes  to her mother's home, given what she's going to find there.

"Stranger Things", Season 2 Chapter 4

"Stranger Things"

Season 2 Chapter Four: Will the Wise

One of the things that makes "Stranger Things" better than some of it's forebears, like "The X-Files", for example, is that the characters seem to make real progress in unraveling the mysteries central to the show. Chapter Four of Season Two is all about making progress.

Hopper and Joyce make progress in by observing and communicating with the afflicted Will. Elle makes progress in learning about her origins by discovering records in Hopper's cabin's crawlspace. And Nancy and Johnathan make progress in learning about the secret lab's activities.

But it's that last part where Season 2 of "Stranger Things" takes it's first missteps. Nancy and Johnathan somehow know that by going to meet Barb's parents they will be captured by the scientists of the lab, and thereby learn their plans when they brag about it like James Bond villains and then let them leave. It just doesn't make sense.

Despite that pretty major plot hole, it's still a pretty good episode with scares and suspense, excellent effects work, and lots of character development all around.

Each episode we've been picking out our favorite musical track of the week
.
Best track his week: it's "Radio Clash" by The Clash, which perfectly sets the mood for Nancy and Johnathan skipping school for a clandestine recon mission.

Stranger Things Season 2: "Chapter Three: The Pollywog"

Stranger Things Season 2

"Chapter Three: The Pollywog"

We get the rest of the story of how Eleven came to live with Hopper.

Hopper figures out the lab is the source of the strange occurrences and threatens Dr. Owens if he doesn't do something about it.

Meanwhile Dustin reveals a weird pollywog-like creature he's found. Dustin is fond of it, but the rest of the crew is more skeptical.

This is the first episode of the second season not directed by the Duffer brothers. Instead Shawn Levy takes the reins, and he's possibly even better at this sort of directing than the series' creators. The episode is full of interesting sounds and camera angles, and when the pollywog gets loose, it's like a little mini-adventure within an adventure. First rate stuff!

Stranger Things, season 2, "Chapter Two: Trick or Treat, Freak"

Stranger Things, season 2 

 "Chapter Two: Trick or Treat, Freak"

It's Halloween. We learn how Eleven escaped from the Upside Down, and has now been "adopted" by Hopper. He has been keeping her hidden in a cabin in the woods. She wants to go trick-or-treating, but Hopper won't allow it. Instead he promises to bring home candy and they can watch a scary movie. 

Meanwhile the upside down continues to bleed over into our world both in visions that Will has, and mysterious phenomenon like pumpkin patches spontaneously decaying. 

Things culminate on Halloween night with Nancy and Steve fighting, and Dustin making a strange discovery.

The nostalgia factor in this episode is high, with the boys dressing up as the Ghostbusters for Halloween. Normally I'd say there was still time to get on board with the series from this episode, but given Netflix all-at-once model, there's really no reason not to start with Chapter One. Up to now the series hasn't failed to entertain, and it looks like a good bet that that's not going to change soon.

Stranger Things season 2 chapter 1: MADMAX

"Stranger Things"

season 2 chapter 1: MADMAX

Stranger Things is back for a second season and if the first episode is any indication, the show's still got it.

One of the things that really impresses me about this series is the accuracy of the setting. While most series set in the 80s are content to wallow in stereotyped nostalgia. "Stranger Things" actually hits the mark. In the first scene that we see the kid protagonists from last season, it's 1984 and they are in a video arcade in Hawkins, IN., playing the arcade game "Dragon's Lair", while Devo's song "Whip It" plays in the background. Why do I mention this? Because I distinctly remember playing "Dragon's Lair in a game room in a small town in Indiana back in 1984 while "Whip It" was playing on the jukebox!

The series doesn't waste a lot of time either - we see supernatural occurrences from the get-go, including Will Byers entering the "upside down" shortly after he shows up.

While one episode does not a series make, MADMAX definitely starts things off right!

IT

IT movie poster

IT

Believe it or not, the film IT owes a great debt to The Lord of the Rings films. 

Based on Stephen King's voluminous novel of the same name, IT was long believed to be un-filmable. Even at the height of King's popularity in the 1980s, IT was optioned not for theatrical release, but for a television mini-series, thought to be the only medium suitable to its expansive story line.

But then came Lord of the Rings trilogy, which proved no only that audiences would sit through genre movies with running times rivaling art films, but also that they would tolerate stories told in multi-part theatrical releases. Add to that a host of ways digital production and post production has enabled logistically complicated screenplays, and the stage was finally set for an "IT" movie.

But unlike the recent box-office flop The Dark Tower, (adapted from another Stephen King book - one that took direct inspiration from Tolkien's "The Lord Of the Rings"), instead of using that digital technology to throw out endless CGI sequences, IT parses those bits out, building suspense over time. It also doles out the jump scares very rarely - making them much scarier when they do happen.

One example of the interesting and subtle way IT takes advantage of digital technology is the use of high dynamic range (HDR) photography during extended scenes in the sewers, which allows the screen to show more detail than standard film, as the human eye might see, while still keeping the overall look profoundly dark.

IT wisely updates the original setting of the small town 1950s America of King's youth, to the small town 1980s America of King's reader's (and moviegoers) youth. Territory which has already proved fertile ground for a number of TV shows lately, most notably the unabashedly "IT"-inspired Stranger Things. And it gets the dull, tedious, and often violent and degrading life of school kids in the 1980s right in a way rarely seen on the screen (even in... especially in movies from the 1980s).

The bottom line here is that IT is fun, IT is believable, and IT is scary, making IT a

The Wild Wild West, Season 1 Episode 14

"Night of the Howling Light"

***1/2

(Dec. 17, 1965)

The fourteenth episode of The Wild Wild West was no doubt inspired by the film The Manchurian Candidate, which had come out just a few years prior. In the story, James and Artemus are sent by the President to bring a message of peace to Chief Ho-Tami of the Osage Indians. But an unhappy tribesman employs Dr. Arcularis to capture West in and brainwash him into assassinating the chief instead.

The episode is mostly carried by the amusing premise (even if it had already been done one the big screen), though it is worth mentioning that it was nominated for a Best Cinematography Emmy. Otherwise, it is absent most of the tropes that the Wild Wild West is known and loved for - gadgets, Artemus' disguises, attractive love interests, etc.